SUNFLOWER - AGRICULTURE
News:
As prices fall, sunflower blooms
What's in the news?
● Few
commodities have witnessed as much price volatility over the last 2-3 years as
edible oils.
● The
UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s global vegetable oils price index
(2014-16 base period value = 100) plunged to a low of 77.8 points in May 2020
at the height of the worldwide COVID lockdowns.
● It
soared to an all-time-high of 251.8 in March 2022 after Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine. But by April 2023, it was down to a 29-month-low of 130 points.
Key takeaways:
● India
consumes 23.5-24 million tonnes (mt) of cooking oil annually, out of which
13.5-14mt is imported and the balance 9.5-10 mt produced from domestically
cultivated seed.
Sunflower consumption in India:
● Sunflower is the fourth
largest consumed oil (2-2.5 mt), behind mustard (3-3.5 mt), soyabean (4.5-5 mt)
and palm (8-8.5 mt).
● Both sunflower and palm
oil are almost wholly imported, with their
domestic production at hardly 50,000 tonnes and 0.3 mt respectively. This is
unlike mustard and soyabean, where the share of domestic output is close to
100% and 30-32% respectively.
States:
● Roughly 70% of the
country’s sunflower oil consumption is in the South,
with Maharashtra (10-15%) and other states making up the rest. One reason for
this geographical skew has to do with sunflower being traditionally grown in
Karnataka, Telangana, and Maharashtra.
Go back to basics:
Sunflower:
● Sunflower
(Helianthus annuus L.) is an important oilseed crop in India, popularly known
as “Surajmukhi.” It is known as a
sunflower as it follows the sun by day, always turning towards its direct rays.
● Sunflower
is a major source of vegetable oil in the world. It is used for a variety of
cooking purposes. Sunflower seed
contains about 48 – 53% edible oil.
Production:
● Ukraine
is the largest producer of sunflowers. (Ukraine and Russia together account for
about 60% of the global sunflower oil production and exports).
● In
India, Sunflower is grown mainly in Karnataka,
Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, and Haryana.
● India is the largest
importer of sunflower oil with imports of about
2.8 million tonnes.
Cultivation:
● Sunflower
is a photo-insensitive crop,
therefore, it can be grown successfully in any season viz., Kharif, Rabi and
spring throughout India.
● The
crop requires a cool climate during
germination and seedling growth.
● It
requires warm weather from the seedling
stage up to flowering stage and warm and sunny days during flowering to
maturity.
● The
amount of linoleic acid decreases
with high temperatures at maturity.
● Sunflower
is a crop of medium water requirement.
Soil:
● Sunflower
can be grown on a wide range of soils and tolerates a moderate pH range and
some salinity.
● It
thrives best on deep loam soils with
good drainage and irrigation facilities.
● The
optimum range of soil pH for this crop is 6.5 to 8.5.
● It
performs better than groundnut in heavy black cotton soils of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.